... disassociated from meaning. He developed his theory of the functions of language into three broad metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal and textual. Each is concerned with different aspects of the world and the, 'modes of meaning', that are identifiable in language in social contexts (Halliday, 1994, p.27). The ideational function focuses on the natural world and events, including our own consciousness. Halliday describes this as the 'content function of language' (Halliday, 1994, p.27). The interpersonal function focuses on the social world. It expresses attitudes, judgements and relationships: the, 'participatory function of language' (Halliday, 1994, p.27). The textual function focuses on the organization of text. It enables language to be, 'operational in a context of situation' (Halliday, 1994, p.27). Each metafunction, therefore, has a different concern and uses particular elements to analyse the clause. The ideational function is concerned with text as a representation, and the clause is analysed into Process, Participant and ...

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